Helping others experience a more intimate relationship with God

Will We Ever Learn?

I was talking to a friend a few days ago. I asked him how it was going. He said that it wasn’t going good. He said that he thought that he had learned how to deal with anxiety, but for the last few mornings he had awakened with his heart pounding from fear. He said that he seemed to be anxious about his work, family, ministry, and whatever else was going on. He knew what he needed to do, but it didn’t seem to be working yet. He wondered if he would ever learn.

I assured him that I knew how he felt. I too was dealing with a problem that I thought I had learned how to handle.

I have a life-long habit of stuffing negative feelings. This is not good. I need to resolve the issues that give birth to the feelings and also express the feelings.

When I don’t do that, I often get body pains. I have had backaches, neck aches, toothaches, hand pains, and finger pains, all resulting from stuffed feelings like anger, hurt, grief, fear, and sadness.

I know that this is true, because the pain has gone away at least 20 times in the last seven years, as I have applied techniques that I learned that assume the pain is being driven by emotions. This chronic pain has ranged from a few days to three years. No doctor was able to get rid of the pain.

But now I have back pain again, which two doctors are clueless about what is causing it. From what I’ve learned, it’s due to stuffed anger.

So what’s going on? Will I ever learn how to deal with my feelings so that pain never comes back?

Why It’s So Hard

The sad truth is that it’s hard to change. The Bible teaches us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). This means that the way we were trained from childhood will tend to be the way we deal with our issues as adults, long after we have learned to do it better.

God knows this. He says, “Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patienceandinstruction (2 Timothy 4:2). And, “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

How We Learn

We learn better ways of dealing with life by being retrained. Not just learning about doing better, but actually doing better as a habit – which can be hard work.

We often don’t get it the first time — or the second, or the 20th time. Old habits die hard.

Jesus knew this when he was training his disciples. He does a miracle and feeds 5,000 with five loaves of bread. Then he does another miracle and feeds 4,000 with seven loaves of bread. But later, the disciples worried about having enough to eat (Mark 8). They still didn’t get it.

So, we can expect to have to revisit the challenges of our past–with one twist. In some ways the challenges will often be harder. God seems to peel away our old ways layer by layer.

In my case, the pain this time is in an area where it’s never been before. And my capacity to ignore a physical source is diminishing as I continue to age.

But God is relentless. He doesn’t give up easily, if ever. We shouldn’t either.

As David grew in faith and skill, he was prepared to take on Goliath (1 Samuel 17). As we grow in our faith and skill to deal with our challenges, we will become more useable and like him.

So, as we revisit challenges that we thought we had already learned how to handle, may we remember that it’s hard to change deeply. Also, our challenges often will have new challenges within it. But this is God’s process to transform us gradually into godlier people, “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).